This edited collection examines the political economy and cultural politics of urban place naming and considers how the commodification of naming rights is transforming the cultural landscapes of contemporary cities. Drawing upon case studies ranging from the selling of naming rights for sports arenas in European cities and metro stations in Dubai to the role of philanthropic naming in the "Facebookification" of San Francisco’s gentrifying neighborhoods, the contributions to this book draw attention to the diverse ways in which toponymic commodification is reshaping the identities of public places into time-limited, rent-generating commodities and the broader implications of these changes on the production of urban space.
The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Urban Geography.
Reuben Rose-Redwood is Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
Jani Vuolteenaho is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki in Finland.
Craig Young is Professor in the Department of Natural Sciences at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom.
Duncan Light is Senior Lecturer in Tourism at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom.